What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise. Eggleston George Cary
and was still blaming himself for the mishap and doubting the possibility of an escape that morning.
“I don’t think it; I know,” answered Larry, beginning to shift ballast in a way that would make backing off the mud bank easier.
“But how do you know?”
“Because there’s a high wind outside and it’s blowing on shore. Look at the white caps out there where the water is open to the sea. We’re in a sort of pocket here, and feel nothing more than a stiff breeze, but it’s blowing great guns outside, and when that happens on an incoming tide the water rises a good deal higher than usual. We’ll float before the tide is at the full.”
“In my judgment we’re afloat now,” said Dick, who had been scrutinizing the water just around them. “We’re resting on the marsh grass, that’s all.”
“So we are,” said Cal, after scanning things a bit. “Let’s get to the oars!”
“Better wait for five or ten minutes,” objected Dick. “We might foul the rudder in backing off. Then we’d be in worse trouble than we were before.”
“That’s so, Dick,” answered Cal, restraining his impatience and falling at once into his peculiarly deliberate utterance. “That is certainly so, and I have been pleased to observe, Dick, that many things you say are so.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Cal, and for what it implies to the contrary.”
“Pray don’t mention it. Take a look over the bow instead and see how she lies now.”
In spite of their banter, that last ten minutes of waiting seemed tediously long, especially to Tom, who wanted to feel the boat gliding through the water again before forgiving himself for having run her aground. At last the bow caught the force of the incoming flood, and without help from anybody the dory lifted herself out of the grass and drifted clear of the mud bank.
The centre board was quickly lowered, the sails hoisted, the burgee run up to the masthead, and, as the Hunkydory heeled over and began plowing through the water with a swish, her crew set up a shout of glee that told of young hearts glad again.
A kindly, gentle thought occurred to Dick Wentworth at that moment. It was that by way of reassuring Tom and showing him that their confidence in him was in no way shaken, they should call him to the helm at once. Dick signalled his suggestion to Larry, by nodding and pointing to Tom, whose eyes were turned away. Larry was quick to understand.
“I say, Tom,” he called out, “come to the tiller and finish your job. It’s still your turn to navigate the craft.”
Tom hesitated for a second, but only for a second. Perhaps he understood the kindly, generous meaning of the summons. However that might be, he promptly responded, and taking the helm from Larry’s hand, said, “Thank you, Larry – and all of you.”
That was all he said; indeed, it was all that he could say just then.
Suspecting something of the sort and dreading every manifestation of emotion, as boys so often do, Larry quickly diverted all minds by calling out:
“See there! Look! There’s a school of skipjacks breaking water dead ahead. Let’s have some fun trolling for them. We haven’t any appointed hours and we’re in no hurry, and trolling for skipjacks is prime sport.”
“What are they, anyhow?” asked Dick, who had become a good deal interested in the strange varieties of fish he had seen for the first time on the southern coast.
“Why, fish, of course. Did you think they were humming birds?”
“Well, I don’t know that I should have been greatly astonished if I had found them to be something of that kind. Since you introduced me to flying fish the other day, I’m prepared for anything. But what I wanted to know was what sort of fish the skipjacks are.”
“Oh, that was it? Well, they’re what you call bluefish up north, I believe. They are variously named along the coast – bluefish, jack mackerel, horse mackerel, skipfish, skipjacks, and by some other names, I believe, and they’re about as good fish to eat as any that swims in salt water, by whatever name you call them.”
“Yes, I’ve eaten them as bluefish,” answered Dick. “They’re considered a great dainty in Boston and up north generally.”
“They’re all that,” answered Larry, “and catching them is great sport besides, as you’ll agree after you’ve had an hour or so of it. We must have some bait first. Tom, run her in toward the mouth of the slough you see on her starboard bow about a mile away. See it? There, where the palmetto trees stand. That’s it. She’s heading straight at the point I mean. Run her in there and bring her head into the wind. Then we’ll find a good place and beach her, and I’ll go ashore with the cast net and get a supply of shrimps.”
“Is it a wallflower or a widow you’re talking about, Larry?” languidly asked Cal, while his brother was getting the cast net out and arranging it for use.
“What do you mean, Cal? Some pestilent nonsense, I’ll be bound.”
“Not at all,” drawled Cal. “I was chivalrously concerned for the unattached and unattended female of whom you’ve been speaking. You’ve mentioned her six times, and always without an escort.”
“Oh, I see,” answered Larry, who was always quick to catch Cal’s rather obscure jests. “Well, by the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her,’ I meant the good ship Hunkydory. She is now nearing the shore and if you don’t busy yourself arranging trolling lines and have them ready by the time I get back on board of her with a supply of shrimps, I’ll see to it that you’re in no fit condition to get off another feeble-minded joke like that for hours to come. There, Tom, give her just a capful of wind and run her gently up that little scrap of sandy beach. No, no, don’t haul your sheet so far – ease it off a bit, or she’ll run too far up the shore. There! That’s better. The moment her nose touches let the sheet run free. Good! Dick himself couldn’t have done that better.”
With that he sprang ashore, and with the heavily leaded cast net over his arm and a galvanized iron bait pail in his hand, hurried along the bank to the mouth of the slough, where he knew there would be multitudes of shrimps gathered for purposes of feeding. After three or four casts of the net he spread it, folded, over the top of his bait bucket to keep the shrimps he had caught from jumping out. Within fifteen minutes after leaping ashore he was back on board again with a bucket full of the bait he wanted.
“Now, then,” he said to Dick and Tom, “Cal will show you how to do the thing. I’ll sail the boat back and forth through the schools, spilling wind so as to keep speed down. Oh, it’s great sport.”
“Well, you shall have your share of it then,” said Dick, carefully coiling his line. “After I’ve tried it a little, and seen what sort of sailing it needs, I’ll relieve you at the tiller and you shall take my line.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Cal with a slower drawl than usual by way of giving emphasis to his words. “Not if I see you first. After Larry has run us through the school two or three times, missing it more than half the time, I’ll take the tiller myself and give you a real chance to hook a fish or two.”
Dick knew Cal well enough to understand that he was in earnest and that there would be no use in protesting or arguing the matter. Besides that, he hooked a big fish just at that moment, and was jerked nearly off his feet. The strength of the pull astonished him for a moment. He had never encountered a fish of any kind that could tug like that, and for the moment he forgot that the dory was doing most of the pulling. In the meanwhile he had lost his fish by holding his line too firmly and dragging the hook out of its mouth.
“That’s your first lesson,” said Cal, as deliberately as if there had been no exciting sport on hand, and with like deliberation letting his own line slip slowly through his tightened fingers. “You must do it as I am doing it now,” he continued. “You see, I have a fish at the other end of my line and I want to bring him aboard. So instead of holding as hard as a check post, I yield a little to the exigencies of the situation, letting the line slip with difficulty